TheDailyMeal.com: 5 Secrets Supermarkets Don't Want You to Know

Meat is Mislabeled

The UDSA is actually pretty lax about testing meat to make sure it is what it says it is on the label, primarily because nobody is butchering horses in the U.S. and it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between, say, beef and pork. Fish, on the other hand, is a different story. A recent study found that up to a third of all fish currently on the market is mislabeled, with expensive fish like tuna being replaced by others that look similar. While most of the counterfeit fish is safe to eat, some of it — like snake mackerel — can cause serious gastric issues. (Credit: Shutterstock) Click Here To See the Full Story from The Daily Meal

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The UDSA is actually pretty lax about testing meat to make sure it is what it says it is on the label, primarily because nobody is butchering horses in the U.S. and it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between, say, beef and pork. Fish, on the other hand, is a different story. A recent study found that up to a third of all fish currently on the market is mislabeled, with expensive fish like tuna being replaced by others that look similar. While most of the counterfeit fish is safe to eat, some of it — like snake mackerel — can cause serious gastric issues. (Credit: Shutterstock) Click Here To See the Full Story from The Daily Meal

We hate to break it to you, but expiration dates really don’t mean much. Sure, Cheez-Its will go stale and milk will go bad a certain number of weeks after packaging, but supermarket meat departments, where they do their own labeling, are generally left up to their own devices (30 states don’t regulate date labeling at all). This means that if an item is set to expire and it still looks okay, supermarkets are allowed to put a new label on, pushing the expiration date back by days or even more than a week. We suggest checking to see when the food first hit the shelf, if possible, or buying meat from a trusted butcher. (Credit: Valueline/ Thinkstock) Click Here To See the Full Story from The Daily Meal

Those big newspaper inserts aren’t actually intended to save you money, they’re supposed to make you buy stuff you don’t need just because you think they’re on sale. Make sure you double check every coupon you’re going to use; in some cases the price advertised is exactly the same as the non-coupon price! (Credit: Flickr/ Wendy Copley) Click Here To See the Full Story from The Daily Meal

You most likely see restaurants being shut down after failing health inspections all the time, but have you ever seen a supermarket shut down after failing an inspection? We didn’t think so. While grocery stores get inspected, they’re under no obligation to close down and clean things up after they fail, largely because health departments are short-staffed and are too focused on restaurants. You can request to take a look at a supermarket’s scores, but they’re not published online, and even after they fail an inspection, they’re under no obligation to let customers know about it. (Credit: iStock/Thinkstock) Click Here To See the Full Story from The Daily Meal

We’ve already gone over why the fruit and vegetables are always by the entrance, but what about the arrangement of food in the aisles? You’re more likely to purchase the items you see first, so the most expensive items are usually at eye level, with the less expensive ones on the top and bottom shelves. Oh, and the items that are geared toward children? Those are slightly lower down on the shelf, so they’re at the eye level of kids. (Credit: Fuse/ Thinkstock) Click Here To See the Full Story from The Daily Meal